I'll Sleep When I'm Dead Movie Review:


Synopsis:

This is Hodges’ follow – up movie to the critically acclaimed Croupier - he also has Owen back on board for this project. Owen plays Will, a reformed London hard - case, who returns to his home turf from a life of country leisure to investigate the circumstances surrounding the suicide of his brother Davey, (Meyers).
Whilst back in the “Big Smoke”, he bumps into the all – round odious Boad (Mc Dowell) who may know more than he lets on about his brother’s demise. Rampling is classy restaurateur Helen, a former lover whom Will is drawn to return to.

“I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” is about two brothers; quite different, but both living in a world of crime. Davey Graham (Jonathon Rhys-Meyers) is a drug
dealer to rich people (well, rich young women), which also gives him the opportunity to be a thief, when he feels like it. One day he is grabbed by
a couple of criminals, taken into some abandoned building, and raped by Boad
(Malcolm McDowell). Davey goes home, gets into his bath, and commits suicide.

Rape, of course, is not a sexual act as much as it is a violent one; Boad has some reason to hate Davey so much that he wants to humiliate and degrade him. When we finally arrive at that reason we realise that a) his actions
are nonsensical, irrational and unjust, and b) in the context of these characters, it makes perfect sense.

The other brother is Will (Clive Owen), who has left crime behind him and is doing an honest job, where no one is able to find him or track him down. He is fired from his job, and goes to London, only to discover his brother’s
death. He finds out about the rape after a post-mortem, and wants to find out who raped Davey, why he raped him, and then he wants to kill the rapist.

“I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” is directed by Mike Hodges, who directed “Get Carter” thirty-two years ago and “Croupier” (also starring Owen) five years ago. The story is similar to the former, while the mood and pace are more
close to the latter. Jack Carter and Will Graham share something in common; they’re both hard, cold gangsters angry at the mysterious deaths of their brothers, but their anger comes from a love for their lost siblings.

I am beginning to admire Owen a lot; he plays cold, unemotional characters that also seem to care deeply about some things. Some people just don’t feel the need to express all of their innermost feelings. Pay close attention to his excellent timing; he knows how, and when, to talk, so we get the message, and he has not needed to make any grand gestures.

He may have met his match in Charlotte Rampling, who plays an old girlfriend
of Will’s, who now owns a restaurant. Rampling, too, can communicate feeling without seeming to feel anything; she has such a tight mouth and
solemn eyes that everything she says seems sincere. This is an excellent pairing.

The film is a tale of revenge, but it is more than that too. It is about two complex brothers, one of whom we learn more about after he dies than
when he is in front of us. It is about living a life that does not please you, and being unable to leave it (there is a scene where a taxi driver
decides, out of the blue, to move to New York, and leaves his taxi and wanders off).

“I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” really cares about its characters, and allows us to as well. It does not follow the obvious clichés; when a character finds
thousands of pounds hidden in Davey’s flat, he pockets it, and there is no subplot requiring him to lose the money, as a lot of gangster films would. It’s not saying that taking the money is right or wrong; just that that is the sort of thing these guys do.

In a lot of gangster films, people are killed off all over the place without effect; in this film, when someone dies, it is significant, and we see the
ripples that it inevitably creates.

**** (out of 5)

Adam Whyte

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